Thursday, June 17, 2010

Chinese Dumpling Festival/Dragon Boat Festival

On the 5th day of the 5th lunar month of the Chinese calendar the Chinese all over the world celebrate the Duan Wu Festival 端午节, also known as the Dumpling Festival or Dragon boat Festival. This festival is celebrated by wrapping the glutinous rice with bamboo leaves. The festival commemorates Qu Yuan 屈原, a patriotic poet from the Kingdom of Chu 楚国 during the Warring States period 战国时代 who committed suicide upon hearing the fall of Chu’s capital city to the Qin. He was believed to have drowned himself in the Miluo River 汨罗江 on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month in 278 BCE. Civilians around the area row their boats out to try to save him or to recover his body. They beat on drums and gongs to frighten away fishes and sea creature to prevent them from eating his body. When these efforts proved futile, they threw rice dumplings into the river to prevent the sea creatures from attacking his body.

Qu Yuan came to symbolize patriotism and on his death anniversary date, it became a custom to organize Dragon boat races 赛龙舟 and to consume dumplings 粽子. For more details about the festival you can read it here .

Each year we brothers and sisters look forward to this festival as we love eating our mom’s homemade traditional dumplings which filled with chestnuts, mushrooms, black eye peas, pork and salted egg yolk. I know we can buy these dumplings but mom's one is the best. The last time I had my mom’s dumplings were many years ago as I am never home during this time of the year. She taught me the techniques of wrapping the dumplings many times but I can’t seem to get it right. I tried making it once but gave up half way through the process and end up steaming the rice in bowls rather than wrapping it in bamboo leaves

I am very lucky this year as a few of us Malaysian ladies gather together to made this. As usual the ladies tried to teach me but I fail miserably. I guess I still need a lot of practice. End up Michelle and Roselind made all the dumplings ;). I took some pictures of our dumplings making session to share it with you.

Getting all the ingredients ready for the dumplings.The wrapping begins.Fold the bamboo leaves into cone shape.Filled the bottom part with a bit of rice.Follow by the fillings of meat, mushroom, chestnut, black eye peas.Top it up with the rice again.Wrap it up.Tie it with a string.Viola!! all ready to be boil.The ladies busy at work. As for me I am busy taking photos ;)We made a lot. All ready to be boil.After 2 hours of boiling.This is how it look like after unwrapping the leaves.This is how it look like on the inside.Thanks Choy, Roselind and Michelle. I had a great time learning from you ladies.

How fun was that? I used to do that with my in-laws. I just made 1kg of rice last week and already finished up by last Saturday! haha.... I've been really busy lately and going to post it out soon! Happy 'Duan Wu Jie' to you & your family too!Best wishes, Kristy

Really love the way you ladies gather to make this...Regretfully, I have still never made a dumpling by myself. My favourite zhang is Nyonya zhang. Happy 端午节！Go easy on the dumplings - they are difficult to digest... drink lots of tea!

Happy Dumplings festival Gert, I too cannot get it right, and end up my mum did all the job..;p I've tried to wrap and wrap until my mum said the rice is already cook coz I took so much time to wrap & unwrap the dumplings..haha!Have a nice day and enjoy the dumplings!!

My family make it different by cooking rice just a little and mixing ingredient in and duck egg in each wrap. Pork also is added and wrap it and cook it faster way of doing it Done this way in Taiwan for years to sell.

Tracie, yes making dumplings is a lot of work but we enjoyed it a lot :)

Pei-Lin, yea end up me being the photographer. Happy Dragon Boat Festival to you too.

Kristy, yes it was a lot of fun doing this. Looking forward to see your posting of it. Happy Duan Wu Jie to you and your family too.

Shirley, yes we ladies gather every 3 weeks to to cook something Malaysian :) Yea I limit myself one or two a week as my stomach can't take too much of glutinous rice.

Wendy, yea lucky two of the ladies know how to do this if not we just have to look at pictures of it ha ha.. Yes I always have problem with the 4 points formation. Just can't seems to get all the edges right :(

Cubis, the one sold at the Asian store here were as bad. The rice were white with a piece of fat pork and some mung beans in it and pretty tasteless!

You ladies are so hardworking to make these bakchang so far away from home. I noticed you used cotton twine to hold the bamboo leaves wrap together. I like my bakchang with a touch of Lingham chilli sauce. Thanks for sharing your bakchang making adventure.

The white yucky ones with mung beans are Cantonese dumplings.Hokkiens will not like that type of dumpling. My hokkien hubby won't eat white ones. But I like them :)

Eh, want to check with you about the rice flour you used for your Pak Thong Koh, did you use pure rice flour or blended rice flour?The information should be on the labels. I checked with Reese, and she used Rose's recipe, as seen from your blog, and hers is blended rice flour. Mine was pure rice flour, so just want to know about your flour.

wow!! so much zhang!!it's nice to gather wt all the Msian ladies to make this special dumpling!! this year I didn't make any dumpling at all.as you know I'm the only one who is eating this gem.Actually I still have the bamboo leaves,rice and other ingredients but too lazy..Maybe I can get one or 2 when I go to Flushing next week..

Since I do not use bamboo leaves but foil instead. I found it so much more faster and easy to get and make dumplings. I cook rice first and add other ingredients in later with seasoning. Rice hold more easy being cook and wrap in foil to steam or boil for just one hour.

Sarah, yes we can't get those regular string that we used back in Malaysia. I too eat the bak chang with lingham chilli sauce. There were good :)

Ho Ho Ho, you are most welcome. I actually took a lot of pictures but too many to post it here :)

Somewhere in Singapore, thanks for your support and your first comment. Hope to see your comment often.

Chow and Chatter, yes it was fun :)

Noobcook, you should try it out next year.

Sonia, thank you.

Elin, I am facing the same problem. Each year I told myself I have to master and art of wrapping but still can't get the hang of it :(

Wendy, I think the Cantonese dumplings back home taste better than the one here. Here it is tasteless!! Oh I just finished the rice flour last week. I have to swing by the Asian store and get more this weekend and I will let you know ok. I will email you :)

My mom showed me but mine fell apart soon as I tried to tie it up. My mon said it is not tight enough. Tried for hours and didn't even get one done right. My mom made over 30 when she came visit and I didn't want to share with my siblings. LOL My kids don't know any of the Asian tradition....sigh.

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